Rick Perry, avid reader

It's nice to know that Ranger Rick's campaign staffers want him to appear learned and even scholarly. I'm not sure that books like this help, though:

One of the books the Texas governor says he's reading lately, Charles Stanley's Turning the Tide, sounds a bit extreme. Although it's described by Politico as "a Baptist pastor's how-to for Christian conservatives who want to change the country's direction," some choice excerpts from the actual words inside reveal "change the country's direction" to be something of a euphemism for "convert all Jews and Muslims because they are heathens."

As Mother Jones notes, the "tide" in the title is actually a "tsunami of death and depravity that we're running out of time to thwart." Then there's this, from Stanley: "Pray for God's protection against terrorism and ask that Muslims throughout the world will come to know Jesus as their Savior."

The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza, who recently detailed Michele Bachmann's own penchant for batty religious writings, tweeted some additional excerpts from the Stanley book, including "pray that Jews worldwide will accept Him as their Savior," and, "May the people of Israel acknowledge their guilt, seek Your face, and accept Your Son -- the Messiah."

If we ever have to put up with the spectacle of President Perry, I'm sure that his first stab at an interfaith breakfast (because of this and the infamous National Day of Theocratic Weirdness) will be interesting for him, albeit in the traditional Chinese sense of the word.